Facebook Graph Search mines a billion people with a trillion connections

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced Graph Search at a press event yesterday at the company's Menlo Park headquarters, billing it as a new way find people, photos, places and interests that are most relevant to Facebook users. Graph Search is the social network's newest way for users to make sense of its massive base of 1 billion users, 240 billion photos, and 1 trillion connections. The tool is meant to provide people the answers to their questions about people, photos, places, and interests. Zuckerberg said Graph Search is launching to a small number of people and is available only on the desktop and in English for the time being.

People can use the structured search tool to resurface old memories, find people in their network, and uncover potential connections. The service incorporates various filters such as "place type," "liked by," and "visited by friends" to make locating things faster. You can refine search queries with more advance filters to get better answers. One example demonstrated was a very specific search for "Friends of my friends who are single male San Francisco, Calif." That refined query returned a select group of people who fit the criteria.